Oscars 2006 Fashion

Most of the celebs looked lovely! I think the thing we've all got to remember is that all these dresses look so much more fantastic in real life and on tv than in photos. There is nothing that can replace the way the dresses move, and swishes & swashes with the actresses. So try to watch the Oscars and the red carpet action on tv if you can!

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Reese Witherspoon looked AMAZING. She wore vintage 1955 Christian Dior, (which she apparently found in a vintage store in Paris and had people fix it up to its original condition,) and looked like royalty. If you can, go find an HQ photo of the dress, looking at it close up will totally awe you. And once again, her smile is just so sweet and relatively natural compared to other stars.

Nicole Kidman wore Balenciaga. Supremely elegant in typical Kidman fashion.

Maggie Gyllenhaal wore Bottega Veneta. She wasn't overly fancy but I love the chiffon and the way she seems to be seemingly carefree.

Keira Knightley also looked STUNNING in Vera Wang. The dress fitted her so well. And she's got one of the best made-up faces there, with eye shadow courtesy of Chanel. This is def one of my FAV looks.

Rachel Weisz wore Narciso Rodriguez. Ok so this dress looks mega boring and plain in the photo, but if you see walking on stage for her acceptance speech for winning Best Supporting Actress, then you'll see the dress is actually really sophisticated. And of course, let's not forget she's seven months pregnant!

Ziyi Zhang in oh surprise surprise, Giorgio Armani. The dress looked great on her, but maybe it's time to try a different designer?

Jessica Alba in Versace. I'm not sure how I feel about this. I mean, the dress fits her scarily well, but that hairstyle is awful on her, making her look older than necessary.

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Uma Thurman in Versace. This time, I'm surprised that Versace can look this sophisticated. Uma looked amazing, but maybe because this is not her 'year' (in terms of awards) so not too many people paid attention to her. And her whole hair and makeup was just unbelievable.

The Blacks:

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Jennifer Aninston in Rochas; Felicity Huffman in Zac Posen; Hilary Swank in Versace. Aninston and Swank looked beautiful, but I'm not so sure about Huffman's dress.

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So many reviews are raving about Michelle William's yellow Vera Wang gown, but personally I don't think it was the best dress there. I didn't like the shoulder/neck bit of the dress.

And finally, well, Charlize Theron probably should pick a slightly more practical and less stiff dress for next year, and Jennifer Lopez really needs to rethink her whole color scheme, in particular how tanned her face should be!

Paris Fall/Winter 2006 Wrap Up III

I absolutely adore Paris Fashion Week (hence all the capitals), you can always rely upon them to put up a fabulous show! I daresay, they leave the best for last. And I know. Its late again. But I simply had to wait for my all time favourite brand-Chloe to come out first.

Chloe
And boy was I disappointed. I get that loose, flirty and fun is cool. But THIS is just taking it waaaaaay too far. I fail to see the aesthetics in this. Its as if now that Phoebe's gone, the rest of the team has taken all that she's done and blown it completely way out of proportion.

But here were the few that I thought was salvageable, they're much more flatteringly proportioned. The one thing I DO like though are the vertically striped stockings. Must look into those.. .

Christian Lacroix
I found that I really liked Lacroix's collection this season. Because besides his usual vibrant luxe, the collection was cool, flirty, cute and very different from his haute couture collection.

The shorter skirts and flirty flow of it definitely adds a casual chic-ness to his collection.

More of Lacroix's customary prints. I love that rustic looking coat.

Flirty, fun, and pretty.

Chanel
As usual, Chanel was gorgeous. Well. . maybe not as usual since I remember being shocked by their last biker shorts collection. . Anyhow, back to the current season. Along with the Chanel elegance Karl brought us the twist of youth.

The classics were cut short with little pom poms and bows everywhere.

Everything was just so darn CUTE! Its amazing how untrashy the models look in those knee high patent boots.

And of course there were still some more sedate pieces. Like this classic LBD brought to life by the gemmed belt, which was very prominent on this runway.


Sophisticated but definitely not old. Especially not with the black bows on all the model's hair.

The huge bag all the models were carrying is gorgeous. I can totally see all the lady's walking down Fifth Avenue with it. And seeing all their loose, messy, delibrately frizzy hair on the runway is comforting. It makes me think that I have a chance at perfecting this runway look next season.

Alexander McQueen
I'm utterly BLOWN AWAY by this collection. It was artistic. It was wearable. It was flattering. It was beautiful. It was everything that fashion should be. Alexander-we bow down to your genius. The collection very aptly displayed Mcqueen's skill and talent as a designer. He is definitely worth his exorbitant price. I highly recommend you all to check out the rest of his
collection. Here are a few that I loved most (and it was tough!):


The career women are all set with this love dress with the clever neckline and this very slimmingly cut suit. Well minus the ridiculous headgear the model on the right.

Pieces for casual chic. I probably wouldn't go for the whole outfit on the left, but all the individual pieces, like that jacket, are just incredible. I wasn't too sure about the shift dress thing before, but after looking at THIS get up, I do believe I'm a convert. (at least, thats what I think is a shift dress)

The epitome of sophisticated elegance-especially with the perfectly cut black dress.


Love the white dress. It just looks so. . ethereal. One would think after seeing so much plaid on the runway this season one would be bored. But no. Never with McQueen's plaid.

Genius. Not only do they show the excellent craftmanship, the artistic design of McQueen, but its wearable and flattering too! I LOVE LOVE LOVE these two dresses.

As if that is not enough to blow us away, in the show, there was even a state of the art hologram of Kate Moss wearing one of the dresses by Baillie Walsh. And here I thought it was just a very blurrily taken picture. Apparently hologram DOES exist outside the cinema. Now I am completely blown over.

Paris Fall / Winter 2006 Wrapup II

Wow. The Paris shows seem to get better and better. The designers are really getting a firm grip of their brands.

Rochas
When you see the first few photos of this Rochas collection, it should instantly hit you that Olivier Theysken really managed to turn his inspiration into real fashion. His inspiration oddly enough is "chimney sweeps. But more relaxed and very refined. A lot of black and gray -and the idea of climbing up to see the clouds above the city." This pretty much sums up the collection. Even the headbands are like ladders and the eye makeup is very... charcoal-like. The color palette is not suprisingly black, grey and white. One thing I liked about this show is that it is not particularly inspired by any of the decades. Finally, this is a show I don't have to say, the dresses were inspired by the x0's, because it belongs to its own time. The dresses were absolutely GORGEOUS. Left: The white dress seems so etheral. Right: The black chiffon at the bottom seems to be literally swirling around Lisa Cant. This has got to be one of my favourite dresses out of all the FW06 dresses.

YSL Rive Gauche
Another beautiful, chic collection. I don't know what to say about it except that it was very YSL: There were the very YSL-chiffon ruffles around the necklines; There were the girly, chic big bows around the necks and wasits; And yes, there were the famous tulip skirts again, except this time they were shorter, above the knees tulips. And as seen in many shows so far, belts were featured prominantly around short dresses and coats. The whole show was black, black and black, with the occasional complimentary white, pink and purple.

Stella McCartney

McCartney's collection is changing: there was less of the normal rock-chick feel, and now more of the English-effortlessly cool feel. This meant less of those McCartney skinny pants and blazers, but a wider variety of clothes and the continue evolution of her signature garments, (such as the oversized sweaters and shift dresses.) Also new are the denim, mainly jeans. To be honest, I didn't really like the blue jeans. I always felt McCartney was great at the whole black skinny jeans/ pants look. All in all, nothing particularly stunning about this collection, but the photos above are some fantastic individual pieces.

Cacharel
I lost interest of Cacharel for awhile, but am liking it again. Cacharel to me was always quite a crafty, youthful brand. And it seems like for FW06, it has grown up a bit -now being a more sophisticated, youthful brand. As the British Vogue catwalk review says, the Cacharel girl will be the most stylish and most popular girl in your yearbook. And this description is so true: The collection was relatively colorful and had a LOT of realistically wearable pieces.
The dresses in paritcular were not overly formal yet sill very chic -perfect for us normal people where a 'formal event' does not mean a 'red carpet event'. If you're actually thinking of buying clothes off a catwalk, then Cacharel is a must-consider brand.

Paris Fall / Winter 2006 Wrapup I

Oops, it seems like we're a bit behind with the fashion week reviews again.

Balenciaga

Wow. Once again Balenciaga stuns us all. Ok, I admit I was a bit put off by the first few 'jockey' looks. I don't like checker patterns and tweed-like materials in general, and the jockey hats are a tad bit weird. But after the first few outfits, the rest were amazing. The main colors seen were white, black, navy and the occasional splash of bright pink.Balenciaga clothes always gives me the feeling of pristine and clean cut. Even with all the different materials and ideas put into the garment, the clothes never look messy or too complicated. I LOVE these two dress and skirt. SO gorgeous. Long legs are the key to the Balenciaga look. Go for the thick black stockings and chunky, sky-high shoes.

Skinny pants continue to be a main focus at Balenciga. These outfits are so sophisticated and perfect for the professional ladies.
I love the dress on the left -it's so simple and versatile. And on the right is how the Balenciaga shoe looks like next season. It's so tall it's actually scary.

Christian Dior
I will flat out say I did not like this collection. Maybe I'm just not one for the whole rock 'n' roll thing. Now I'm not saying there weren't any great clothes there, in fact, there were some gorgeous jackets and coats. (The photos I have chosen are the few outfits I liked in this collection.) But I just really found this collection to be very dramatic in an unelegant way. Perhaps if you're a (very rich) rock star chick yourself, then you'll love this Dior collection.
There were some crazy HUGE dresses at the end of the Dior show. Except for thisbrown dress, the others were just waaay too much for me. And is it just me, or did John Galliano make all the models look like him?

Vivienne Westwood
Usually I don't comment much on Vivienne Westwood because I'm not quite the Westwood dresser, but the FW collection actually caught my eye. Maybe it's because you don't see much streetwear-looking clothes in Paris catwalks. Anyhow, I love how Vivienne manages to make her clothes look so casual when it's obviously not that simple. There's a super cool feel to all her outfits.
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I esp LOVE the outfit on the right. I love the whole big hoodie sweatshirt plus couture-like puffy skirt. I can't decide whether it's the perfect outfit for a football game or an expensive restaurant!
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Any Westwood fan would have to get this dress for their wedding!
Ann Demulemeester
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This collection is all about the straight silhouette and a bit of the gothic feel. Demulemeester clothes don't make grand statements or particularly follow trends, but there is just something so basic, yet obviously styled about the clothes. Even though most of her clothes are mono-coloured, there are actually a LOT of layers there, just take a closer look, (such as the white one below.)
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A totally irrelevant note: even though Sasha P. is still a bit of a heroin-chic version of Gemma to me, Sasha really does do the whole gothic look perfectly.

Tadaaa... New SS06 Layout

Tadaa...... We proudly present you our SS06 layout!

It took a LOT of thinking to get to this simple design, mainly because we were thinking of all these waay too complicated designs that were beyond our technical capabilities before this one. Now you're thinking, seriously, what thoughts could have gone into this? Well, basically we chose what we thought were the best runway photos that represent what SS06 is all about: From the white, the dresses, the brands, the layering, the platforms, right down to Gemma Ward's beautiful face (which is apparently what we all aspire to look like this season) and Prada's bright-coloured lips. And of course let's not forget the fabulous cities that we live in and have grown to love: Love Hong Kong for being tax free and big with discount cards and international brands; downtown Chicago for being just the escape one needs from Hyde Park ; and London for being the best inspiration for street fashion.

Once again, we thank T, our technical guru from Queen's U, Canada, who was dragged along to help us perfect the photoshop technicalities and html bits. We love you (and msn)!

The fashion photos were taken from vogue.co.uk, and the destination photos were found in various sites. I don't think I have to clarify this, but for those who don't obsessively stare at fashion photos in their free time, right to left: Chloe, Balenciaga, Prada, Marc by Marc Jacobs, Dior and Burberry (at the top.)

Let us know if there is any problem with the new layout on your screens. And any compliments are welcomed of course *hint hint*. We hope this puts you all into the SS06 frame of mind and stay tune for more SS06 style notes!